In forming runners in Francis-Type turbines, the blades of the runners are normally welded to the lower band and to the crown. This welding of necessity must be done by hand and usually requires a tremendous amount of hand grinding to produce fillets of the desired contours with the necessary smoothness. This hand grinding of the welded T-joints to produce the desired fillet contour materially increases the costs of the manufacturing of the turbine buckets. The hand grinding operation often required regrinding after inspection so as to pick up areas of the weld which had not been ground properly to the desired contour.
To alleviate the necessity of hand grinding or, more accurately, to reduce the amount of hand grinding necessary to mold the proper contour fillet, a method and apparatus therefor has been provided which eliminates excess grinding of the fillet joint and provides for a slag relief notch for the slag to creep into from the weld.
It is the general object of the present invention to produce fillets when electroslag welding T-joints, which require little upgrading to eliminate notches at the toe of the weld. Still another object of the present invention is to provide means whereby fillets in electroslag welding of T-joints may be produced of any type of any radius. Yet another object of the present invention is the provision of a shoe with a slag-relief notch whereby nearly any fillet shape can be produced.